Facing the Fear of an Enemy From Within

Fearing a tragedy of the magnitude of the Oklahoma City bombing, federal law enforcement officials over the last 14 months had grown increasingly worried about--and had begun monitoring--a number of weapons-oriented extremist groups, including one in Michigan whose meetings a figure in the case had attended.

But the monitoring failed to prevent perhaps the worst terrorist disaster in American history. And as the fast-moving case developed This story was reported by Times staff writers David Willman in Washington, Richard A. Serrano in Oklahoma City and Ralph Frammolino, Paul Feldman and Eric Lichtblau in Los Angeles. It was written by Willman and Frammolino.

Friday, America began to confront the likelihood that the horrific destruction in Oklahoma City came not from abroad, but from within the United States.

With the arrest Friday of one Midwesterner and the questioning of two others who have possible links to a self-styled militia, the spotlight swung away from international terrorist groups and was thrown on domestic hate groups--a fragmented network of people united in their love of guns and their loathing of taxes and big government.

Federal law enforcement officials confirmed that they were concerned in recent months that at least some members of the militia groups were growing increasingly radical in their statements and more likely to commit violent acts. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms stepped up its monitoring of militia groups last October, officials said. The sources also said that they were actively investigating possible links between the bombers and militia groups in Michigan and elsewhere,

The exact linkage, if any, between the bombing suspects and paramilitary groups remained unclear Friday night. In Oklahoma, authorities said that they had found strong ties linking Thomas James McVeigh, the suspect arrested in the case Friday afternoon, with the Michigan Militia--one of the paramilitary groups.

Spokesmen for the militia, however, denied any link to McVeigh and officials in Washington cautioned that the issue remained under investigation.

In the past, the militia has denounced Jews, the news media and the federal government, particularly the Internal Revenue Service and the ATF, both of which had offices in the now-destroyed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

“The individual arrested by the Highway Patrol in Perry (Oklahoma) is tied into the Michigan Militia by family and other social relationships,” said Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who has been briefed by federal authorities on the case and is a former FBI agent.

“The relationships are strong, and that’s the way it all pieced together,” Keating said.

In Michigan, federal and local law enforcement officials raided a house in a rural section of the state belonging to James Nichols, apparently searching for evidence connected with the bombing. Nichols and his brother, Terry Lynn Nichols, who turned himself in to authorities in Kansas, were being questioned, officials said, but had not been arrested. The Nichols brothers had attended meetings of the Michigan Militia but spokesmen for the group insisted they were not members.

As investigators sought to sort out leads in the case and determine possible motivations for the bombing, experts on extremist groups said that the reality of domestic terrorism could have a profound impact.

“I think this is really going to cause a rethinking in terms of what terrorism really is,” said Jeffrey Simon, a Santa Monica author on terrorism in America. “If these are the homegrown groups and if the terrorists are right among us, brought up in our own civilization, where do we put the blame?”

Spokesmen for militia organizations, however, insisted that they were being unfairly targeted. “We don’t believe in violent means or violent acts,” said Samuel Sherwood, director of the U.S. Militia Assn., based in Blackfoot, Ida., with chapters in 10 states. He denounced more militant groups as “gangs of guys with guns.”

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Homegrown, right-wing political extremists, ranging from citizen “militias” to outright Aryan Nation hate-mongers, are growing increasingly angry, dangerous and sophisticated, according to hate-crime experts. At the same time, they are spreading their message to wider audiences through the mass media and the Internet, the burgeoning web of computer networks.

“These groups have access to millions of people through the vehicle of talk radio and talk TV shows and that’s a method they’ve discovered to gain adherents,” said David A. Lehrer, Pacific Southwest regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. “They also have easy access to weapons, explosives and the technology to use them.”

Hate crime experts cautioned that far-right extremist groups encompass a wide gamut of causes and influences--some having tax resistance as their central focus, some ethnic hatred, others the right to bear arms. The tie that binds, observers said, is a common hatred of Washington.

“Many of them say they are not white supremacists at all but what joins them together is a severe mistrust of the government,” said Brian Levin, an Orange County hate-crimes expert with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Klanswatch project.

“These groups are very fluid, with cells all over the place,” Levin continued. “The thing that holds them together is that they regard things like the Waco (Texas) incident, the Weaver incident, as examples of why they have to take stands against the federal government.”

Wednesday’s bombing came on the second anniversary of the storming by federal agents of the Branch Davidian stronghold in Waco, which ended in the deaths of more than 80 members of the religious cult who, according to trial testimony, set fire to their own building.

In the Weaver case, 200 federal agents engaged in an 11-day standoff in northern Idaho in 1992 with avowed racist Randy Weaver, who had fled to an isolated cabin after his arrest on illegal weapons sale charges. Weaver became a hero to some survivalists and religious extremists after shootings in which a federal official and Weaver’s wife and 13-year-old son died.

Of growing concern, experts said, are citizen militias that have sprung up in rural areas of at least 16 states stretching from Florida to Idaho within the last 1 1/2 years. Adopting the rallying cry of “No More Wacos, No More Weavers,” they have attracted various followers ranging from those who believe that the government is conspiring to take away their guns to small businessmen fed up with regulations and taxes.

Federal law enforcement officials said that, as early as last spring, they believed the Michigan Militia had transformed itself from a political group advocating less government intervention on issues such as gun control into a paramilitary organization. At this point, they said, the group appears to have formed branches in more than three-fourths of Michigan’s 85 counties.

Gary Krause, chief of police in Fowlerville, Mich., 25 miles east of the capital city of Lansing, said that his department last year arrested three self-described militia associates after their car was found to contain 700 rounds of ammunition, loaded rifles, night-vision goggles and other military-type gear. The men were wearing camouflage clothing, he said.

They later failed to appear for their arraignment, Krause said, adding that “30 to 40” uniformed militia members did show up that day in court. Some taunted officers with threats of future violence, Krause said.

Yet the difficulty for law enforcement, Krause said, is distinguishing the actions of violence-prone individuals from group activity, such as field maneuvers, that is not on its face illegal.

“Some factions are of a radical nature,” he said. “(But) I think you’d have to focus not on the group but on individuals.” Krause added that over the last two years he believes the groups have adopted a misleading strategy of disavowing associates who get arrested or attract attention for allegations of illegal acts.

Michael Redman, a township supervisor and veteran deputy sheriff in Sanilac County, about 80 miles north of Detroit, said he has noticed that the Michigan Militia has become an increasingly vocal group.

Within the last year, he said, militia members have come to attention by resisting attempts in neighboring townships to enforce zoning laws and require residents to clean their properties of old cars and other blight. In two cases, Redman said, those fingered by the townships have identified themselves as militia members and argued that the government does not have a right to dictate the use of their property.

“In the last couple of years, it has come about as a fairly large group of individuals,” said Redman. “They’ve been vocal about local township zoning ordinances.”

He said that law officers like himself have been hesitant about having contact with militia members, hoping to avoid any confrontation, especially since the group is known to be armed. “I think the feeling that the potential for this group being involved in weapons is there,” he said.

In addition to the militias, extremist groups also include a volatile set of white supremacists, who experts said find a common bond with militia groups under the anti-government banner. In October, the Southern Poverty Law Center urged Atty. Gen. Janet Reno in a letter to investigate militias because the confluence of citizen armies and racial hate-mongers are a “recipe for disaster.”

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The two movements came together at the 1990 Aryan World Congress in Idaho, according to Rick Eaton, researcher for the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. A featured speaker at the conference was the co-founder of the Militia of Montana, recently arrested with a cache of illegal weapons and explosives, Eaton said.

Montana has been a major scene of militia activity with both local and national groups conducting maneuvers in the state. According to Flathead County Sheriff-Coroner Jim Dupont, groups that start out advocating merely strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution--particularly the 2nd Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms--have become radical.

“A bunch of hard-working people up here will form one of these things, then they’ll get infiltrated,” by more strident advocates who favor violence. “Basically, (the insurgents) start brain-washing ‘em. It’s happening.”

“We’ve got some militia groups in other parts of Montana,” Dupont said, pausing. “I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

Militias identified with ties to racist groups are active in Michigan, Idaho, Montana, Missouri, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Georgia, said Eaton. He added the Wiesenthal Center has not detected any militia movement in California.

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers John Goldman in New York, Josh Meyer in Los Angeles and Ronald J. Ostrow, Jack Nelson, Melissa Healy, Janet Hook and Robin Wright in Washington.